


fade to the close-up, arms ‘round

by The-Immortal-Moon (LunaKat)



Series: 2019 New Year's Resolution (Year of Bastille) [10]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Inspired by Fanart, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Past Character Death, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 21:23:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20880896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaKat/pseuds/The-Immortal-Moon
Summary: “You must be Edward, right?”His grip on the door tightens. “Who’re you?” he asks, which is neither a confirmation or a denial.“You’re the eldest, aren’t you?” she inquires, which is not an answer. Mom always said to be suspicious of someone who answers a question with more questions. It means they have something to hide. “You look so much like your father—Hohenheim of Light. I knew him well.”Ed’s fingernails sink into the wood. He can feel Al’s anxious gaze searing into his shoulder blades.“My name is Dante,” says the old lady. “May I come in?”





	fade to the close-up, arms ‘round

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Oct 3! Have a big ol' slice of messed-up AU!

It’s been three days, and nothing has changed.

Ed eyes her worriedly. Mom lies still, her chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm that proves the only indication of her being merely asleep instead of lying cold and dead as she was in the casket just a year before. Her eyes are fluttered closed, motionless save for the occasional twitch from the curling end of her dark lashes. Diffuse beams of pale morning light pour in from the part of the gauzy curtains. It spills across the milky pallor in her skin—her color hasn’t come back, even now—and the strange darkness that now threads its way through her normally chestnut-hued hair. It traces a path across the shape of her clavicle, the dip in her collarbone, the cricoid cartilage forming lines in her neck, then halts at the small scarlet mark that brands itself just over her heart and above the edge of the covers pulled up over her chest for the sake of modesty.

A dragon curls around itself, coiled in an endless circle with its teeth parted to clamp down upon its own tail. Wings crown the spiny back, splayed out as though getting ready to take off at a moments’ notice. In the center, a broken star sits in fragmented pieces, like it fell from the heavens and shattered on impact.

He bites his lip. Rubs at his upper arm. It prickles.

* * *

“It’s a birthmark,” Mom told them when Ed asked about it, pointing curiously to the shape on his left bicep, just beneath his shoulder. Her fingertips were tender as they traced it, the touch featherlight. “A very special one.”

“Then how come we can’t show people?” Al inquired. His sat on his wrist, so he usually wore long sleeves—and if he didn’t, he at least wore gloves that covered it up. Ed, meanwhile, could get away with shorter sleeves and anything but tank tops. Sometimes she made him wrap gauze around his bicep just in case and pretend he’s gotten himself cut.

She smiled as she ruffled his hair. “Well, it’s a little strange, as far as birthmarks go, don’t you think? And you wouldn’t want the unnecessary attention, now would you?”

They both shook their head. If there’s one thing they didn’t want, it was for people to think they were strange. Not that they weren’t—because they were very strange, faster and stronger and far too clever for their age. But people generally needed to think they were less strange they were, that their strangeness was more mundane than it was, and only then would they be allowed peace.

At least, that’s what Mom always said.

* * *

“Any change?” Al asks nervously once Ed makes his way down the stairs.

His brother’s hopeful expression wilts when Ed shakes his head.

Three days since they traced the chalk circle on the concrete basement floor, mixed ingredients together and poured them into a metal vat that they placed in the center. Three days since they managed to construct a perfect human structure from the concoction and first beheld their mother’s slumbering, albeit unclothed, form. Three days since the excitement and the triumph of success that swelled in their belies began to give way to doubt, to fear, to an insidious suspicion that their achievement was not as perfect as they once thought.

Because it’s been three days, and she still lays motionless if not for the slow, calm breaths that indicate her lungs are functioning and her heart is beating but not much else.

_Comatose_, Ed offered on the eve of the first day, when the sun rose and set and she still hadn’t woken. _A deep sleep. Her body’s just recovering still, that’s all. She’ll be awake in no time._

Then the second day passed. Ed began searching through medical texts to explain the phenomenon—something to account for why she had yet to wake, her eyelids fluttering open so that she could greet them with the smile they missed for so long.

Yesterday, Al offered her a glass of water, pressed it to her lips and gingerly poured it into her mouth, and they watched together the movement of her throat as she swallowed even subconsciously, which meant that her body systems were still functional, at least. They can keep her hydrated, which is good, but then there’s the matter of sustenance, because human beings can only go a few weeks without food before their bodies start to degenerate. And eating is a conscious effort.

In normal circumstances, they could take her to a doctor, to a hospital, and have them strap an IV to her arm. She could get all her vital nutrients and minerals and electrolytes through a saline solution until she roused from her slumber. But Trisha Elric has been dead for a year now, is a familiar face among the local doctors because of her previous illness—they have no feasible way of explaining her appearance, let alone her condition, without revealing what they did.

It’s only starting to dawn on them now, the complexity of what they mean to accomplish and the consequences that sprawl out in rippling chain reactions. Now they have their mother back, but how do they mean to explain how the woman who was buried in a casket last year has returned from the grave? Human transmutation isn’t just a moral taboo, but a strike against a law charted down on government paper in government ink. A law that levies the death sentence against all that defy it. Sure, Risembool looks after their own, but how will that hold up against something like this, which so clearly defies the natural order?

Their neighbors are already leery of them, as they have been for as long as they can remember, being the strange children that always garnered a touch of suspicion from grown-ups. There’s no telling what the townsfolk might do when they’re asked to tell such lies, when the law also extends its punishment to abetters and accomplices alike.

Ed runs his hands roughly over his face, fingers tangling in his bangs and tugging at the roots. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. It was supposed to be different—a happy ending. They would have their mother back and everything would be alright again. This isn’t—

Someone knocks at the door.

They both tense. No one knows yet that they returned from Dublith—so they think, anyway. So far, it’s worked to their advantage, with no nosy neighbors like the endlessly-tolerant Rockbells come poking around and risk discovering what they’ve wrought. But if someone saw them at the train station, if the gossip spread, _if they see Mom_—

Al’s eyes reflect Ed’s fear back at him.

* * *

They snuck into their father’s study often when they were children. Mom probably knew they did, but she indulged them by turning a blind eye, pretending she wasn’t aware of their pillaging the bookshelves and cloistering themselves away on rainy nights with alchemy texts in their laps. In fact, whenever they accidentally left their stolen bounty out on the floor, in their infinite and childish carelessness, they usually came back to find the books stacked neatly upon their beds, as though granting permission.

Alchemy is a fascinating subject, one that thrills them right down to the core even now. Neither could really explain their obsession with the science, just as someone cannot describe how it feels to see in color but find themselves drawn in by evocative paintings nonetheless. Something about the elegance of the arrays and the complex circles simply stole the breath from their little lungs, quickened their heartbeats.

After the incident in which they made a doll for Winry, Mom was utterly bewildered. To this day, Ed has no idea why—she knew they were reading the books, but it seems it never occurred to her that they could _understand_ it. Which, in hindsight, didn’t seem very fair at all, since they spent their first day of school thinking circles around their teachers and left the other kids muttering about how _weird_ the two of them were.

“They’re your and his sons, after all,” Granny Pinako said in what sounded like approval. It was the first time anyone besides Mom said anything approving. It thrilled them.

But on the walk back to their own house, Mom’s expression was unreadable. She peered into the pages of the alchemy book as though seeking an answer. It left them a little unnerved. They asked if they had done something wrong.

She stopped walking. Just, stopped.

The alchemy book in her hand snapped shut.

Ed’s heart pounded as she turned to face them, then lowered herself to her knees. He expected to be scolded, for her to upset or angry or something that would warrant her to just—stop, like that.

But then her arms encircled them and her shoulders shuddered and she was making breathy gasping sounds and it took him a moment to realize she was _weeping_.

“Mom?” he asked, pitchy with alarmed. “A-Are you okay?”

“Is something wrong?” Al inquired with a note of panic.

“Not at_ all_.” She pulled away, and Ed’s heart nearly flew out from his throat when he realized her green eyes glistened with tears. Her hand found its way to cover her mouth, but the corners peeked out and it he could see that she was_ grinning_, wider than either of them had ever seen. “I’m just—I’m so _glad_ you can do this.”

Bewildered, they exchanged a look with one another. It seemed a bit of an over-the-top reaction. “You are?” Ed asked, a touch skeptical.

She wiped at her eyes, still grinning wide. “I am. You have no idea how happy it makes me, to see you two performing alchemy.”

Something in him softened at that. “Really?”

“Really. You two—” She sniffed and covered her mouth again and the light in her eyes was an overwhelming joy, an overwhelming pride, that left Ed a little speechless. “You boys are absolutely_ miraculous_.”

* * *

Maybe the person will just go away. Ed tells himself that, heart in his throat and stomach churning nervously and pleading, somewhere between hopeful and desperate, that hoping will make it so. Maybe—maybe they don’t actually _know_ they’re home and only _think_ they are and when they don’t answer, they’ll just—

Another knock, more insistent than before.

Al lets out a muffled whine. Huffing, Ed decides, screw it, he’s going to answer the door. Hopefully they’re just checking in and they’ll go away quickly once they see that everything is fine. And no one has to know that Mom is sleeping upstairs, pale but breathing and very much not dead.

When he does open the door, though, a stranger stands on the other side. An old woman, wearing a dress that covers nearly her entire body with a purple shawl thrown overtop—too thick and heavy for dry Risembool summers—and her silver hair pulled back into a tight bun wrapped in a glittering black net. Wrinkles pinch at her eyes, at the gentle smile that crosses her face. The powerful stench of her floral perfume slams hard into Ed’s nose, catches in the back of his throat, has him struggling not to gag.

Her smile doesn’t falter when she looks down at him, and she doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that the door was answered by a child rather than an adult. Strange for someone who doesn’t already know him.

But then she says, “You must be Edward, right?”

His grip on the door tightens. “Who’re you?” he asks, which is neither a confirmation or a denial.

“You’re the eldest, aren’t you?” she inquires, which is not an answer. Mom always said to be suspicious of someone who answers a question with more questions. It means they have something to hide. “You look so much like your father—Hohenheim of Light. I knew him well.”

Ed’s fingernails sink into the wood. He can feel Al’s anxious gaze searing into his shoulder blades.

“My name is Dante,” says the old lady. “May I come in?”

They look at one another, and, unfortunately, they can’t think of a single reason why not.

* * *

Neither of them really remember their father, seeing how he disappeared when they were very young. Ed hates him for it rather openly, Al a little more reticent to do the same. Mom always insisted that he loves them in spite of his chronic absence.

What they don’t know about Hohenheim Elric could fill libraries and what they do know could be recorded in a little pad of paper. He was an alchemist, apparently—a master alchemist, brilliant and astute and well-versed in all manners of arcana that would leave most scholars’ heads spinning.

Mom wasn’t most scholars, though. She said she was Dad’s first and only student, which was how they first met, first fell in love. She sought him out after hearing rumors of his prowess, then wore him down until he_ finally _accepted her into his tutelage. But their relationship began to change at some point, leading them to elope one humid autumn night, and then Ed came along and they settled in the sleepy pastoral countryside of Risembool to live an idyllic life and then had Al.

Only he disappeared, and Ed cannot fathom why he would do so, if he apparently loved them so much.

Whatever the case, they managed just fine in his absence. Mom may not have been the master alchemist, but she taught them nonetheless, lectured them about circles and transmutation and the inescapable flow of the world. Equivalent Exchange was as much a prayer to them as it was a bedtime story, something discussed openly in the light of day and murmured in the shelter of the night and whispered excitedly about beneath the covers when the rest of the world slept soundlessly.

One day, Al asked Mom if their father taught her how to transmute like that—by pressing her palms together and conjuring crackling blue light between her fingertips and forgoing an array entirely.

Something about that made her lips purse, her brow furrow worriedly, an uncertainty that wrought itself into her green eyes. But before she could answer, she broke into a coughing fit and Ed had to phone the doctor.

It wasn’t anything they weren’t used to. Despite her brilliant mind and her alchemic prowess, Mom’s lungs were weak. She caught congestive colds almost yearly, had days where her breaths rasped loudly enough to fill the whole house, would always breathe with a faint wheeze accompanying each inhale and exhale. To anyone else, it would be worrying. But again, they were used to it.

Medicine helped, as did a daily period in which she spent time breathing in burning incense to clear the sickness from her lungs. Running was a tiring exercise, she couldn’t exert herself—the doctors always insisted she rest more than she did, but once they left, she would laugh that sometimes it felt like she’d never get to do anything without some stuffy old fuddy-duddy telling her what to do.

Once, Ed declared that he was going to become a become master alchemist and find a way to fix Mom’s lungs. She smiled sadly at him, insisted there was no need.

“I’m fine with having a little trouble breathing,” she said, and tenderly cupped both their cheeks. “It’s worth seeing you both grow up.”

They asked what she meant. She smiled, and never really answered.

* * *

“Dad isn’t here,” Al declares nervously as Ed closes the door behind Dante.

That doesn’t seem to surprise her, but her brows arch curiously anyway. “Oh? And where is he, then?”

A familiar lash of bitterness makes impact with Ed’s sternum. “How’re _we_ supposed to know?”

Despite Mom’s constant reassurances of endless love and devotion, Hohenheim disappeared from their lives long ago and made sure to stay that way. And no proper father would do that, surely.

They wrote letters—when their mother was ailing, when her illness grew too much and the walls of her lungs started to rupture and fill with fluid. She’d been sick for years, but she was good at hiding it and even better at hiding how it was getting worse. Her deception succeeded until they found her collapsed on the floor, and by then, the doctors didn’t think there was a chance of saving her.

Pneumonia, they said. It doesn’t really matter what it was, though, only that it left her coughing and feverish and deliriously mumbling their father’s name. Al was the one who came up with the idea, digging out the list of contacts wedged in some obscure corner of the study and proposing that they start casting out lifelines. Ed didn’t want to, but Mom needed it and as loathe as he was to admit it, their father was a better alchemist than all three of them combined. Perhaps he could find a way to save her that the doctors hadn’t yet thought of.

In the end, most of the letters marked with the name “Hohenheim” returned with a red stamp that said “address moved”. Others replied with apologies stating that their father had practically disappeared off the face of the map a long time ago, but assuring they would forward the letters anyway and pass the message along if he ever turned up. Some man from the military—Roy Mustang, Ed thinks his name was—arrived on their doorstep the second day after they resurrected Mom, inquiring about the missing alchemist, but Ed ended up slamming the door in his face because by then it was too little, too late.

Dante’s brows pinch. She doesn’t look ready to scold them, but nor does she look ready to comfort them. Instead she just hums absently, her gaze roving casually across the worn furniture of the parlor and the modest kitchen and the dining room that’s faintly visible down the hall. Something in Ed bristles at the blandness of her gaze, the derisiveness with which she views their home. It’s not as though she has the right to simply barge in here and make judgements about their living arrangements.

Nerves prickle at Ed’s throat when her eyes fall on the stairs to the basement, and linger there. He sees something flash in her gaze—but she can’t _know_. She _can’t_.

“Why’re you here?” Ed demands a second time.

That pulls her attention back to them. Her face smiles, but her eyes remain strangely apathetic as she reaches into her pocket, then produces a familiar piece of plain white stationary with a postage stamp that seems to have gotten ruined on its journey into her wrinkled hand.

Ed narrows his eyes. His own handwriting glares back at him accusingly.

“One of his acquaintances forwarded this to me,” she explains.

Matching suspicion flickers in Al’s gaze as he glances at Ed. They combed through the entirety of their father’s list of contacts. The name “Dante” was not anywhere on it.

“That was a year ago,” Ed says. It sounds like an accusation because it is one and he makes no move to correct it.

Her smile tightens, and her eyes gleam, as though she can tell that he’s already seen through her act of a kindly matron showing concern for the children of an old friend. But rather than drop the act, she lowers herself onto the couch. And Ed bristles at the audacity—that she can just come into the private sanctity of their home and make it hers.

“Perhaps I’ll tell you over tea,” she says, and makes it sound like an order.

They exchange a glance, neither happy. It’s clear to Ed that there’s no way they’re getting rid of her anytime soon. Dread pools in his belly.

Al exhales through his nose, half annoyed and half defeated, then disappears into the kitchen to brew tea for their houseguest.

* * *

The nightmares started when they were too young to remember and never truly stop. Ed still remembers the nights they both awoke screaming, sobbing into their mother’s arms about awful black hands and massive eyes and a golden-white void that threatened to swallow them whole.

Whenever they snuck into Mom’s room late at night, roused her from wheezing snores with their terrified whimpering, she would pull them into a tight embrace and whisper reassurances peppered in featherlight kisses.

“They’re just bad dreams,” she’d say, and stroke their hair, and Ed would try not sniff, for even the comforting lilt of her voice couldn’t chase away the paralyzing certainty that one day, the big black gate was going to take them away forever. “There are no gates. No one and nothing is going to take you anywhere.”

“How do you_ know_?” Al wailed. He tended to be much less composed than Ed did, after the dreams.

Something fierce and hard entered gaze, belying the tenderness with which she threaded her hands through their hair. “I just do, sweetie. Just trust me, okay?”

It didn’t stop the dreams, really, but her comfort at least helped through the aftermath. Sometimes it almost felt like they could believe her, that they could pretend that no such gateway existed. It made it easier to keep the dreams a secret, as Mom insisted they do.

One time the dreams got particularly vivid, and Ed woke with his head spinning from a sudden flux of information that shouldn’t have been there. Beside him, Al’s breathing was ragged and sharp, and he whimpered when Ed tried to rouse him. He woke an hour later, looking just as groggy as Ed had felt earlier. In whispered tones, they discussed what they had seen—what the massive void had imparted upon them.

When they showed Mom their newfound ability to transmute without a circle, they expected her to be jubilant. She had been when they first performed alchemy and every subsequent time after, and now they had reached her level of skill. She would be pleased, surely.

But instead her face lost some of its color and her lips pursed and when she assured them she was proud, it sounded hollow. Later, Ed listened through the door of her room, disconcerted by how wet and choppy her coughing was despite the floral smell of incense that was supposed to help her breathe.

She never did ask them how they learned the technique. She only got down on her knees and explained, very seriously, that they should never show anyone. Especially not people who could do the same.

“Why?” Ed asked, unnerved by the grimness of her expression.

“Promise me,” she said instead.

They promised, and never showed a soul. Not even Teacher knows they can transmute like her.

* * *

In the end, Al chooses to brew chamomile tea, either because that’s what’s easiest or because it’s all they have in the house. Its aroma fills the whole house. Ed has never been fond of tea himself, but Mom raised them to have manners, so he helps prepare a cup for the stranger who claims to know their absent father, and then reluctantly offers it for her to take.

Dante sips leisurely from her cup as they sit across from her in the parlor, their fists curled in white-knuckled anxiety. It annoys Ed how blasé she is, how she seems to sample the tea as though assessing how worthy it is for her to drink when they are under no obligation to serve her any in the first place. In fact, it would be well within their rights to ask her to leave. To call some of the neighbors if she refuses. Mr. MacFadden has a shotgun reserved for unwelcome visitors like the military man from yesterday.

But the military man never set foot in the house and if someone came to make this lady leave, they would have to do that. Which means they run the risk of someone finding out about Mom. Which cannot happen.

Eventually, she decides the tea is satisfying and sets her cup down on the saucer and then sets them both down on the coffee table. “So,” she begins, threading her hands together. “Exactly how long has your father been missing?”

Something about that sentence has Ed furrowing his brows.

“Pretty much all our lives,” Al answers, just as Ed realizes she said “missing” instead of “gone” and that strikes him as both odd and significant.

“I see,” she says, pursing her lips. There is a fleeting spark of sorrow, or perhaps bereavement, in her gaze, but is it gone almost immediately. “Did he leave you anything?”

Ed’s suspicions wail in the back of his mind. “Like what?”

Without missing a beat, she replies, “Like a piece of the Philosopher’s Stone, for instance.”

In that moment, Ed is very grateful for the fact that he isn’t drinking anything, otherwise it would have ended up sprayed everywhere and lodged in his throat and leave him choking on it. Beside him, Al goes stock-still, mouth parting as though to respond, only for the words to prematurely die.

“_What_?” Ed snaps, once he finds his voice. But his mind races back to the shining pebble they found sealed alchemically in a small compartment inside the drawer of the desk in the study—it looked like a piece of a falling star, gleaming with an unearthly crimson light that, for the oddest reason, made him ache to taste it. Which he ignored, because Mom always warned them from eating anything they found in the study, no matter how appetizing it might have looked.

But that shard... He remembers the warmth it emitted against his palm, the way it felt like holding a fragment of the heavens in his hand. Remembers the way its preternatural light sparkled in Al’s eyes as they both peered down at this discovery they unearthed by accident, this precious thing that may be the key to regaining what they lost. Remembers how he gripped it tight and nearly wept in relief, because all the careful calculations and perfect formulas in the world would fall apart but this would see them through. This would cement their success.

Remembers how a pair of great onyx doors parted and smoky hands burst out from the abyss and Al trembling behind his back because it was all their worst nightmares realized and this damn thing was going to take them away right then and there.

And Ed remembers how _screamed_ at the Gate as he threw the gleaming Stone—their beacon, their hope, their all-or-nothing—into the blackness and _demanded_ it give them their mother back.

Now she’s returned to them. Sleeping upstairs, whole and intact and alive once again, without even a remote trace of the weakness that once ravaged her lungs. She is back and she is here and it _worked_.

But this woman can’t know. There’s no way. There’s no conceivable—

Her smile is soft and cold like the first snow of winter as she says, “It’s the only way you could have resurrected your mother without having a toll enacted, after all.”

No. No no no no no—

“You must have seen it,” she purrs and Ed stares in utter horror as the old woman leans forward with a chilling glitter in her dark, rheumy eyes. “The Gate. It must have shown itself to you.”

His memories rewind to the way the transmutation’s light changed from resplendent gold to eerie violet, how the smoky appendages seeped in through the floorboards, how the doors appeared from thin air and parted to reveal thousands of eyes that pierced through the void and how terror seized him with a rawness he had not known existed until that moment.

Ed presses his palms flat against his knees so hard he thinks they’ll bruise later.

“It’s not real,” Al whimpers. Turning, Ed finds that his brother has curled up into a fetal position, knees brought to his chest and hands clamped protectively across his head and terror bright in his eyes. “It’s just dream. Just a bad dream.”

Dante falters. “Pardon?”

Almost immediately, Ed’s older brother instincts kick in and he’s quick to wrap his arms protectively around Al’s shoulders. But Al keeps shaking, breaths coming out in sharp gasps that are almost like sobs. “M-Mom said it’s just a bad dream—”

“...your mother has seen the Gate?”

He doesn’t deign to respond, because she has no right to know what Mom saw or had to say about anything, much less mythical gateways that burst from their nightmares to appear in reality. And Al doesn’t answer either, because at that point he’s started to sniffle and buries his face in Ed’s chest with a whimper. Ed’s grip tightens and he tries to ignore Dante’s keen, incredulous gaze just as strongly as he tries to ignore the fact that Al isn’t the only one shaking over the memory.

Once Al has started to recompose himself and the tremoring has left Ed’s skeleton, he glances up at Dante. Something like suspicion has entered her gaze in smoky wisps, tightened the line of her mouth and brought a bewildered furrow to her brows.

Then she rises to her feet. “Where is your mother?”

“Leave,” Ed says.

Dante glances at the stairwell, the one that leads to the second level and to the room where Mom is convalescing. “...she’s up there, isn’t she?”

“Get _out_.”

Ignoring him, Dante starts towards the stairs.

Al straightens, but Ed reacts first. He leaps to his feet and stomps up their stairs in hot pursuit. His brother hastens at his heels and they try to get to her before she can dare disturb their mother. Before she can learn that the woman sleeping silent under the pale morning light is supposed to be dead, has been buried in the ground for a year and should not be so comfortable in her bed as she is now.

Maybe if he still had a piece of the Stone, maybe he could use it to banish her just like he banished the Gate. He could throw its bloody shine into the abyss to ward it off, pierce the darkness with its impeccable radiance, its unearthly lambent. And the void, satisfied, would evaporate into nothing but the memory of smoke. Somehow, he is confident that one of those star-bight pieces would definitely satisfy her, would persuade her into departing, and he could exile her for the rest of their lives. If he still had it, he would make it so they would never have to see her again.

But he doesn’t, and he can’t, so all he can do is scream his throat hoarse in protests that fall on deaf ears.

* * *

All of their scratches and bumps heal a little faster than normal. One time, Ed skinned his knee on the hillside in a dare from one of the neighbor kids and by the end of the day, only a livid bruise remained. Mom told them not to show this off to anyone, that it wasn’t something boast about—just like their alchemy technique and their strangely shaped birthmarks and their night-terrors about the obsidian gateway. Instead, she told them what to say when anyone inquires.

“Mom taught us some medical alchemy,” is what they told Teacher when their bruises faded quickly and their twisted ankles straightened and their sprained wrists were quick to stop swelling. She always furrowed her brows a little more skeptically than most of the folks who they would recite this to, probably because she herself is an alchemist and would know medical alchemy if she saw it, but she never really questioned the explanation. Which was good. Ed doesn’t think he could have faced the disappointment in Mom’s eyes if he had to confess that someone saw through the lie.

He’s still not sure why he ever had to lie in the first place. It’s not normal, he knows. It’s not normal for someone’s cuts and scrapes to start closing themselves up within hours. It’s not normal for split knuckles to scab over in minutes. It’s not normal to lose a tooth and then feel its replacement immediately pressing its way through your gums.

But, well, they’ve never been normal in the first place, so who cares? They trust Mom. She always knew what was best.

* * *

Dante makes it up the stairs before Ed can stop her. Al races frantically at his heels.

“Stop!” Ed shouts, and charges after her, reaching out to snatch the end of her shawl and yank her back because he’s always been a little stronger than normal kids and it will keep her from disturbing their sleeping mother.

But without missing a step, she claps her hands together and brushes her hands against the wall and Ed’s eyes widen as the floor lights up blue beneath him. He leaps back, half out of shock over the fact that she—like Mom and Teacher and him and Al—can transmute without a circle, and half to avoid the floorboards transforming into a thick wooden wall that rises out from the ground to kiss the ceiling with a muted thump.

A growl rumbles in his throat, and Ed slams his hands together so hard his palms sting. He presses them into the wood and holds his breath as they sink into the surface. It’s a little like stumbling your way through molasses, and it would be so easy to get yourself caught halfway through, to find yourself stuck with half your torso imbedded in the wood. One time, Ed accidentally fused his arm into the wall and he spent a full minute wailing at the top of his lungs before Mom found him and calmed him down enough to listen to her murmured instructions—just try to remember the shape of your body, try to envision it in your mind and pull yourself back together.

He did and the arm came free and she helped him wipe the tears from his eyes, calling him very, very brave.

It was added to the list of many, many things he and Al were meant to keep secret.

Secret or not, the memory serves him well, and he stumbles free of the barrier a second later. Without missing a step, he continues running and finds that Dante has somehow managed to determine that the room at the end of the hall is Mom’s. The thought of this stranger disturbing their somnolent mother, intruding upon their greatest secret, fills him with a rage so deep it makes his vision flash red.

“Leave her _alone_!” Ed snarls, and throws himself in front of the door just before she can reach out to turn the handle.

And Dante jolts back in mild surprise. “When did you...?”

She turns around just in time to see Al following suit, emerging from the wall in a bright alchemic flash of icy blue. Ed doesn’t think it quite warrants the shock that overcomes her features, or the way her eyes widen, but it doesn’t matter because she _needs to leave_.

As Al races over to join him in barracking the door, Dante’s eyes narrow. Her gaze first dart to Ed’s face, taking quick stock like she’s seeing him for the first time, her mouth pursing in concentration as though trying to solve a puzzle without the valuable addition of color. She repeats the process with Al, deviating only to glance down and notice the gloves he’s wearing in addition to his long-sleeved sweater, which would strike most as odd but not altogether unusual enough to stand out immediately.

Unease thrums in Ed’s belly as something seems to dawn on her, and she steps back, her face going carefully blank. It looks like she’s been hit with an epiphany.

“That son of a bitch,” she says, and then—

Smiles.

* * *

During their time training under Teacher, they did, in fact, research medical alchemy—among other things, of course. They scoured a multitude of alchemy texts that they’d never really heard of, never read before, their hungry minds eager to soak up unfamiliar knowledge. It was fascinating and intriguing and it was here that Ed first stumbles across a likeness to his and Al’s birthmarks.

It was a little disconcerting to find that their birthmarks so greatly resembled an alchemic glyph. Without revealing the source of their curiosity, they showed the image to Teacher and asked what it meant.

Teacher changed the subject.

She started to lecture them about the flow of the world, the cycle of nature, how life begets death and death begets life and all is one, one is all. Once she was done, she concluded that this was why bringing back the dead was forbidden.

Of course, she also beat them up a little, because she wouldn’t be Teacher if she didn’t leave them black and blue after a lesson. Ed resolved to never bring up the subject again, lest she decide to rehash the lesson with a little more brutality to punctuate it. He and Al laid in bed for hours afterwards, wincing as their cuts and scrapes and bruises started to heal of their own volition, wondering quietly to themselves what in hell her lecture had to do with the glyph.

“She’s_ crazy_,” Ed concluded before rolling over and falling asleep.

That night, the Gate crossed Ed’s dreams again, but instead of him usually standing at the foot of it and bolting in terror as it screeched open, the abyss’s shadowy arms rushing out to tangle around his legs and drag him kicking and screaming into its depths—instead, he dreamed that he was inside it. He dreamed that he was part of the void, of the darkness that peered out at that solemn man with blond hair tied in a loose tail and hopeless despair in his eyes, offering up his very being to the hungry oblivion.

He held up a gleaming red shard, like a bloodied piece of nirvana. “This for the souls, and myself for their minds and bodies. That seems a fair trade.”

A discontented grumble rippled its way through the inky darkness, even as the smoky arms reached out reluctantly to accept the oblation. The glowing piece was swallowed up by the void with a huff. The Gate did so loathe cheaters.

“Think what you want. It doesn’t matter,” he said as the arms reached out and snared his arms, his legs, his torso, tore at his coat and revealed a black spot of rot blooming on his shoulder. “I’m dying anyway.”

Humans always do ask for so much. But a toll was a toll and payment was payment. And he did not resist as the Gate tugged him into its depths.

As the doors began to close behind him, he murmured, “Just let them be human. That’s all I ask.”

Ed woke, shaking, with his heart pounding and tears in his eyes.

It turned out Al had the same dream, and it was then that Ed began to think. Because people don’t usually have the same dream as one another, right? Nor do they usually share birthmarks, especially ones of such striking detail and complexity.

Not that they have ever been normal—but suddenly all the strange things about them were piling up, tipping the scale, and now he began to examine them with fresh eyes.

The man’s voice still rang in his ears._ Just let them be human. That’s all I ask._

* * *

“My apologies,” Dante says, which strikes Ed as odd, because she doesn’t seem the type to apologize in any way, sense, or form. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Get out,” Ed repeats. He doesn’t care if she didn’t mean it. Mom is behind the door and no one can see her and this crazy lady makes all his nerves stand on end and she needs to _go away_.

“Now, now.” Her tone grows honeyed, sweet, entreating. He narrows his eyes as her hand dips into her pocket. “I just want to give her some medicine, that’s all.”

While Ed’s suspicions refuse to abate, Al perks up at his side, eyes lighting with a tentative hope. “Medicine?” he repeats.

Dante’s kind smile returns, but Ed can see through the ruse. Can see the cold, calculative gleam that lives in her eyes. She removes her hand from her pocket, but her fingers are curled around her palm to indicate that it’s no longer empty. “That’s right. I brought something to help her feel better.”

As proof of this, she uncurls her fingers to reveal a small pile of gleaming blood-colored stones. Pebbles, actually, no bigger that the shining crimson fragment they found in their father’s desk. But unlike that, these pebbles don’t release a light that looks like stardust condensed into a physical form. Their glow is muted, still unearthly, but more disconcerting to look at than the miraculous brightness that spilled from the Philosopher’s Stone. If the Stone was a fragment of a fallen star, of heaven, that dropped to earth—these seem like they were mined from the underworld, chipped off the edges of carnage-red cliffs.

Something tickles in Ed’s belly, the longer he stares at the pebbles. It’s the same sensation as when he first saw the Stone, the indescribable urge to feel the hardness crunch between his teeth. He narrows his eyes to keep it at bay. “That doesn’t look like any medicine _I’ve_ ever seen.”

The softness doesn’t falter. You’d almost think it was real. “It’s a special kind. Your mother—she has an ouroboros on her, doesn’t she?”

They both stiffen, alarm spiking. Al’s reaction is more severe, sucking in a sharp breath and his hazel eyes widening and he sends a sidelong look of shimmering panic in Ed’s direction. Ed, though, tries to swallow the incredulous hysteria building in his gut—how does she _know_?—and tempers it by just glaring at Dante’s face and waiting for the façade to drop.

But it doesn’t. She holds her palm out, the pebbles flashing tantalizing scarlet against her wrinkled skin. “Here. You can try some, if you like. Judge if it’s safe or not.”

Some rational part of Ed protests, because if it actually isn’t medicine and makes them sick instead, there will be no one to stop this crazy lady from poisoning Mom. But part of him also wants to discern whether it really can help, because Mom’s been sleeping for three days straight and if there really _is_ a way to help her, then—then it figures it would come from an alchemist, someone with a little more knowledge than them.

Ultimately, whether he trusts this woman or not doesn’t matter. He just wants Mom to get _better_.

Al’s gaze flashes in his direction, mirroring his own determination. A brief, silent discussion passes between them—a tacit argument over who will take the bullet. Ed has the superiority of being the eldest, so Al ends up resigning when he boldly sticks his hand out to snatch a pebble up.

He ends up choosing a small one, a mere pinpoint of crimson. It radiates warmth between his fingertips. Not like the Stone did, which felt like holding a heartbeat in his palm. This is more like decay, like decomposition or digestion or the heat of a chemical reaction collapsing upon itself. Like the warmth of a dying star rather than the brightness of a newly born one.

His brother lets out a squeak when Ed unceremoniously pops it in his mouth. He doesn’t really expect anything. It’s hard, smooth on his tongue. The warmth remains.

The taste hits a moment later.

Ed covers his mouth, his breath hitching, because _oh_. _Ohhhhh_...

All his life his tongue has felt partly dead, flavor a bland echo upon permanently-numbed taste buds. But this... this melts in his mouth and floods over his tongue and it’s unlike anything he’s ever known and it’s _amazing_. So amazing it’s a little terrifying, actually. The warm that slides down his throat feels like decay, settles in his belly and expands through his entire being until his skeleton is humming from the feedback of this infernal pleasure. Synapses quickening, heart pumping, blood heating. It’s almost like alchemy, the way the buzz of energy would rattle through his bone marrow, but there’s something... _different_ about it. Insidious, almost.

But insidious or not, it feels _good_. Feels _right_. Feels familiar in a way only childhood comforts can be, welcoming and wonderful. Feels like something clicking into place, a sunken shipwreck settling into its new home at the ocean’s floor. Crevices in his soul—crevices he never even noticed, but somehow never doubted the existence of—open up to drink the sensation in greedily. He’s pleasantly dizzy by the end of it.

“Would you like one, Alphonse?” Dante inquires, somewhere over the drone of _goodrightwronggood_ in Ed’s ears.

All too quickly, the fog starts to lift and fade. Ed whines a little at the loss, unsure why he should grieve it but bereft regardless. It’s not fair! He’s never felt so _alive_, so complete, so close to a wholeness he never knew he was lacking. But regardless of his feelings, the sensation continues to fade, slipping from between his fingers like loose sand.

A moment later, he hears Al gasp quietly, and knows he is not alone in the experience.

“Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Ed’s eyelids flutter open. He feels—different, somehow. Like he’s been dreaming too long and something has finally shocked him awake. Like something dormant inside him just opened an eye.

Dante is still smiling, but his gaze dips to the scarlet pile still cupped in her palm. A fierce hunger grips at his being. He wants another one—no, two. Three. Ten. _Twenty_. Wants to stuff them down his throat until the hunger goes away. Wants to understand what’s happening to him, because only these things seem to have the answer. Wants to crack them open between his teeth, with the pointed canines that tended to make people a little wary but would be _perfect_ for crushing those pebbles to dust.

It—it shouldn’t be _possible_ to crave something so powerfully. This hunger lives beyond his belly, courses through his veins and engraves itself into his bones. He licks his lips absently. His entire being _yearns_.

“So,” she begins, and plucks a pebble between her fingers. Ed’s heart quickens as she holds it up, the way someone might tantalize a dog with a treat. “How long ago was it?”

And somehow, Ed knows exactly what she means. Fuzzy murmurs spring to life from a corner of his mind that he never knew existed. The crackle of alchemy. Warm hands cradling his body. Pain knotted tight in his flesh, this nostalgic taste...

“Nine years,” Al chirps before Ed can even think to say anything. He opens his mouth, and catches the pebble on his tongue as Dante throws it. Ed lets out a whining little protest at the unfairness of it.

“Nine years...” Her gaze roams their features again, but Ed is more interested in the pebbles, in feeling them melt on his tongue and slide down his gullet and awaken this thing stirring inside him. “And you’ve been aging all this time...”

“Obviously,” Ed sniffs.

Her smile widens a little. Despite her age, her teeth are still firm, pearly white. His breath hitches when she plucks another pebble. “When did you first start performing alchemy?”

“When I was—” Ed stops, does a quick mental calculation. He’s _supposed_ to be eleven now, and Al is _supposed_ to be ten, but they’re actually the same age, aren’t they? “Physically, I was five and Al was four, but—but I guess we were both three, really.”

The pebble lands in his mouth, and he nearly groans as the sensation returns full-force. It’s stronger this time, somehow, perhaps because he crunches it between his teeth rather than letting it melt. When it comes, it brings with it an undeniable sense of something shifting, of a precipice rearing up beneath his feet. The abyss below it beckons him to step forward, to fall in, plunge heedlessly into the blackness. Let it welcome him like a babe to its cradle.

His left bicep prickles, the exact same spot where his birthmark is—only, it’s not really a birthmark at all. It never was. Mom lied.

“And your marks? How long have you had them?”

“Always,” Al says at the exact same time Ed says, “As long as we can remember.”

Instead of rewarding them with more pebbles, Dante tilts her head curiously. “Show me.”

A single moment’s hesitation offers an intermission between the end of her command and Al reluctantly peeling his gloves off. Ed has less reservations, heedlessly rolling his sleeve back to display his own mark. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears his mother’s warning in his ears, advising him to always keep the strangeness of the shape hidden from strangers—but then Dante gives them both another pebble and Mom’s voice fades.

The shock hits harder the third time, to the point where it borders on hurting. Ed bites the inside of his cheek as the world fluctuates wildly around him, beneath him, within him. If anything, the hunger is getting worse. Or, is it truly hunger? It’s an emptiness of some sort anyhow, and it starts to ache where it weighs against his soul. Is that the right word, though? Soul? Does he even have one of those? Something tells him he should, but doesn’t, and that doesn’t make any...

When the buzz fades, he registers Dante’s surprisingly smooth hand on his cheek, tilting his face up. Whatever she sees excites her—there’s something wild and giddy in the light of her eyes, the width of her smile. “And to think,” she says, a touch breathless, “that they came _so_ close.”

“Close to what?” Ed asks. His skin prickles. He wants another pebble.

But Dante doesn’t seem to hear him. Her thumb traces slow strokes over his cheekbone. “You two... Homunculi that can age _and_ perform alchemy... You are absolutely _miraculous_.”

“Homunculi?” Al repeats bewilderedly, which snaps Ed out of his daze. He glances over at his brother, and is more than a little surprised to find that his eyes have changed—the hazel color has given way to a striking, chatoyant violet, with narrow, feline pupils.

With a jolt, Ed wonders if his have also changed. Is that—no, that’s _very_ clearly not normal. What—

He loses his train of thought when Dante presses another pebble to his lips, and he’s swallowed by the heady tide that follows.

“More,” he begs. There’s—there’s something coming. That dormant thing is stretching and waking up, starting to pace the inside of its container. It feels like the head is rising to break surface, any minute now, and then everything will make sense. He can feel it. It’s so close, so close, _so close_.

“Not now,” Dante chides, and releases him. “I only have so many, and your mother needs them, you know.”

Shamefully, Ed realizes that he had allowed Mom to completely slip his mind, and so easily at that. But the words fill him with disappointment regardless, knowing that the revelation pounding at the walls of his being has to be delayed a while longer.

Still. If they need the pebbles—oh, how he and Al _need_ them, how did they ever live so long _without_ them?—then logic dictates that Mom will, as well, if she is now of the same likeness as them. Only those pebbles can bring life surging through the inert body that they shoved her consciousness into. Only those pebbles will be able to sink into her being, zap her static heartbeat into motion and leave her brimming with so much power that she feels ready to spill over if she moves too fast.

...god, he wants another one. It’s almost insane. He can hardly believe the depth of his own _want_.

“But I have plenty more back at my home,” Dante assures them, curling her fingers to hide the remaining pebbles from view. Just as well, too, because Ed is temped to rip her hand right off her wrist just to get at them, even though he’s dimly aware that such a casually violent thought should unnerve him. “Once I’ve made your mother better, would you like to come with me? I have enough stones to curb your appetite—and then some.”

Such a thing feels impossible, with the intensity of the hunger that gnaws at him, permanently unsatisfied. But the prospect alone floods him with a sickening excitement. Just imagining it makes him _ache_...

He glances at Al, whose newly violet eyes are bright with a similar yearning. He’s not the only one who’s found himself overcome with this sudden and borderline-violent craving.

“You’d take us with you?” Al asks, warily, but not without his gaze betraying him.

And Dante smiles like a cat who ate the canary as she replies, “Of course.”

* * *

Clarity grows the more Ed focuses on it. Some pieces are brought into chilling focus, others slip in and out of his grasp. But it starts to fit together. The whispers and the voices, the flickering images that form hazy silhouettes in the darkness of early memory. Missing pieces of a forgotten puzzle.

There was fear, horrible and sickening. The smell of bile and blood. Rubbing circles on a tiny back. Watching as the weakness set in and the deterioration grew worse every day. Pale face and glassy eyes and losing sleep because it’s not getting better. A little scrap of a person curled up tight in warm arms as they whimper, begging to make it stop, make it stop, please, please, please, it hurts so much.

A doctor’s voice. “He’s too young to operate on. If he can’t keep anything down...”

Coughing. Weak but rough, wet but faint, punctuating every raspy breath. Painful to listen to, worse to watch. A cradle in a dimly-lit nursery. No crying, no wailing, only fits that echo off the walls. Blankets quivering as fluid-filled lungs struggle for breath. So small, so fragile. Desperation growing with each passing minute.

The same doctor. “Pneumonia. With the condition he’s in, it’s likely that he won’t...”

Warm hands, cold skin. Stillness. Weeping, sobbing, doctor shaking his head. Knees give out. Heart-rending sorrow. Soul-spitting grief. Collapse into his arms, wail into his shoulder.

Rage. Unfairness. Desperation. Obsession. Pleading and begging and finally getting him to agree, knew he would, he loved them too—

Light. Pain. The Gate.

PAIN.

His body was all twisted up and he sobbed through the agony and he ached, it _hurt_,_ why did it hurt so much_—

And then she was there, her eyes wide and her face pale and horror stark on her otherwise lovely features. Shaking hands brought to her mouth, scarlet peeking out between the fingers. The mist of the reaction still thick in the air and obscuring his vision.

Hard to see straight. So much pain.

Halting footsteps. Her face, hovering. Tender hands in his hair. “Edward?”

Breathing hurt and it sounded wrong. Awful noises, wet and raspy and thick. That can’t be him. It can’t be.

“Ed, honey? That’s... that’s_ you_ in there, isn’t it?”

A garbled cry. Someone else breathing, ragged and sharp. Beside him.

“Oh,_ Alphonse_...”

Days of fevered agony. Something pouring against his lips. His body spasming and struggling to straighten itself out. Fitful dreaming. Darkness. Light. Afterimage of the Gate on his eyelids. His brother’s breath harmonizing with his own. Heartbeat in his ears, soft and strong and sure.

Coughing. He woke to find a woman coughing into her hands, hacking as though her lungs were trying to crawl their way out of her throat. When she was done, she wheezed loudly, gripping the side of the bed as she fought to flood her system with oxygen. He took in her chestnut brown hair, the line of her shoulders, the soothing lavender shade of her dress. Familiarity struck him.

Then she looked up, noticed he was awake. Her eyes were a lovely shade of green. “Edward.”

That was... his name, wasn’t it? Yes, he thought so. And she...

“...Mom?”

“That’s right,” she said. Her voice was soft, sweet. He loved the sound of it. “That’s right, sweetie.”

He was groggy, bleary, caught in a gray area between unconsciousness and staying awake. “What happened?”

“You were sick.” Her fingertips were soft, soothing as she brushed hair from his face. “You and Al, you were so sick. But you’re better now.”

And she smiled, so he smiled back. He could hear the soft, sleepy breathing of another somewhere behind him—probably Al, Alphonse, his little brother, fast asleep in his bassinet. Right where he should be.

But somewhere in the haze of his bleary mind, he was aware that something was missing. Someone was missing. Another face, leaning over Mom’s shoulder. One that would blur as the absence stretched on and on and memory continued to fade into oblivion. At the time, though, the blurry edges were crisp and clear, and he frowned in puzzlement at the obvious missing component.

Trying to sit up made him dizzy. Mom had to slip her hand onto his lower back to support him, murmuring about how he shouldn’t push himself, he’s still recovering, he—

“Where’s Dad?” he asked, and she went quiet.

“How are you feeling?” she asked instead.

Mom always said to be suspicious of someone who answers a question with more questions. It means they have something to hide.

* * *

In the grey light of a cloud-ridden day, Mom looks like a faded photograph, like a snapshot of dreamy Briar Rose before the charming prince pressed a loving kiss to her lips. Only instead of a kiss, Dante places a glowing scarlet pebble to her mouth, gently teasing it past the barrier of pearly teeth until it reaches the tongue.

Ed grips the bedsheets tighter, Al at his side, as the pebble disappears inside her mouth. Despite himself, he still selfishly aches to take it for himself, but he smothers it down, tense and bristling with anticipation. If this doesn’t break the three-day coma and bring their mother back to them, then maybe nothing will. It _has_ to work.

At first, there’s no reaction. Dante draws back. Ed almost thinks she’s going to declare their mother a lost cause.

Then her eyelids twitch. Her brows furrow. The breath in Ed’s lungs tightens. Silent eagerness has Al leaning forward.

Then Mom _gasps_, and her eyes snap open. She bolts upright so suddenly that Al jumps back in alarm.

One of her pale arms reaches to instinctively pin the sheets over her chest for modesty’s sake, while the other curls an instinctive fist around the linens. Her chest heaves sharply with each panting gasp, but her breathing is clear, unburdened by any whispering shadow of wheezing. No evidence remains of how the reaction that birthed them them shredded her lungs up, all those years ago. They will never have to fear her airways filling up with blood or pus or fluid and having her hide it from them and the world for years upon years upon years until it’s too late to save her.

The ouroboros on her collarbone bobs faintly, with each breath. When Ed glimpses her eyes, he finds himself strangely delighted to discover that they are the same stunning chatoyant violet that Al’s are, that his are, with the same catlike pupils. It sends a dark, visceral thrill through him—the realization that they are the same now, all three of them.

“There,” Dante purrs approvingly, and settles herself upon the mattress, right next to the bed of Mom’s knees. “Feeling better, dear?”

Mom sways, unsteady. Ed reaches out, but Dante’s hand already catches her by a pale shoulder. Even with something to hold her in place, Mom lists forward weakly, her smoky brown hair dripping liquidly over her face. It’s darker than before, her complexion white like bone instead of peachily flushed with life. Fleetingly, Ed wonders if all of them come back with just the slightest bit of difference, miniscule coloration changes the distinguish them from the previous version. He and Al have always been a little pale themselves, come to think of it...

“Easy now.” With her other hand, Dante offers up the remaining pile of pebbles. The gleam red as calcified blood, like temptation incarnate. “Here. Eat these. They’ll make you strong.”

It is only by looking away that Ed manages, just barely, to restrain himself form reaching out and claiming them for himself. Al, too, has to bite his lip to keep himself in check. They watch through their periphery as Mom uncertainly raises her free hand to accept them, her movements stiff from a general unfamiliarity with motion.

There is confusion on her face as she rolls some of the larger stones into her own milky palm, and her brows furrow on her profile as she studies the oddity of them. Ed wonders if she’s started to crave them as he has, if she suffers from the same undeniable hunger-pangs for these strange, gleaming pieces of crystal alchemy. Hesitation still dominates her as she cups her palm to her mouth and downs them in one gulp.

A heartbeat passes.

The hitching of her breath signals that the stones have done their work. A small shudder moves through her body, and she goes taut for a moment, then loosens, turns boneless. Dante helps her lean back against the headboard. Her lashes quiver, her breathing deep and content. The ouroboros over her heart seems a little more vibrant than it was moments ago—it matches theirs.

Ed leans forward to cross his arms on the mattress, perch his chin on his forearms, anticipatory. His sleeve is pulled up to brazenly display his own mark, and Al has likewise discarded his gloves. Seeing someone baring the same symbol will surely be a reassurance. And perhaps, in time, she might even forgive their transgression, just as they are grudgingly willing to forgive hers. None of them asked for this, but they are all each other has.

No longer needed, Dante retracts her hand, then sets it flat on her lap with its twin. Her smile is one of satisfaction, one that inspires in Ed a sudden urge to throw himself between her and Mom. She looks at their mother as though she’s an object to be possessed—and Ed will _never_ allow such a thing to transpire, delicious stones or no.

Before he can protest, Dante turns an approving gaze onto them. “I must hand it to you two. They aren’t usually this strong after they’ve been born.”

Al’s mouth twists into something more like a warning than a smile. Ed narrows his eyes, not sure if that’s a compliment or a slight against alchemists or both. Either way, he’s offended.

“Born,” Mom repeats blearily. She presses her hand to her forehead, evidently still dizzy and the fog just starting to lift. “What...? What happened...?”

Dante smiles thinly at her. “Well, my dear, let’s just say that your boys are absolutely brilliant and leave at that.”

Groggily, Mom blinks her eyes open. They’re still misty from the remnants of the stones’ effect on her body. “My...?”

When she turns to look at them, the mist doesn’t dissipate. Ed’s heart becomes a lump in his throat as she searches their faces, brows lowering. The recognition should be kicking in right about now. She should know—start to connect their features with the memories already flickering to life inside her head. That should be happening. Why isn’t it happening?

Just as he begins to suspect that they must have done something wrong, her brows rise to her hairline. Then her eyes soften. The mist clears. And even though they aren’t green anymore, the tenderness that blooms to life there is just the same as its always been.

Slowly, her lips curl. White teeth flash.

She _smiles_.

And then there’s a lump in Ed’s throat for a very different reason. It’s not_ quite_ the smile they ached for and missed so much—just like they are not_ quite_ the little boys she intended to resurrect—but in that moment, not _quite_ is more than enough. His eyes itch with the hot prick of tears and he doesn’t need to look to know that Al’s are shining wetly.

“Mom,” Al sniffs.

Her other arm spreads out. To welcome or to trap, who knows. It doesn’t matter. “Come here, you two.”

No other permission is needed. They clamor onto the bed, and she is real and solid around their arms, albeit a little cold and stiff. But it doesn’t matter. None of the little differences matter. All that matters is that Ed can bury his face into her shoulder just like he used to and that they did it. They succeeded. They brought her _back_.

He feels the weight of her chin on his scalp, her hand spread flat across his lower back. Her breath is cool against his ear. The smell of her skin is a little different, lacks the earthiness of humanity that he remembers always clung to her, but it offers a delirious sort of comfort, now that humanity will no longer be a barrier between them.

“You boys,” Mom whispers, her voice just as sweet as the day he first woke up, “are absolutely _miraculous_, you know that?”

All the while, Dante’s gaze rests upon them, coldly pleased.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this beautifully cursed piece of fanart](https://roymaes.tumblr.com/post/92269957448) that has always sparked my imagination. Between this idea that I’ve had bouncing around in my head for a while and my recently rewatching ’03, I finally scrapped up the motivation to write this monstrosity.
> 
> Oi, okay, so. August's inspiration came a little late, and then I had to put in the back-burner to focus on school and Grand Arcanum, so it's half-written, but needs to be finished up and edited. Same for September. I will catch up, I swear, but for now, here's October's installment. Happy (early) Halloween!
> 
> Title is from the lyrics of "Doom Days" by Bastille (Album: Doom Days). God, there are so many evocative lyric lines from that song it was actually hard to choose one.


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